bandcamp
And finally, a long-awaited new album of Panopticon, received directly from A.Lundr! The first three tracks were also released on a split w/ WBSS, and the last three - on a split w/ Skagos. In comparison with two previous albums, "On The Subject Of Mortality" is less aggressive, more melodic, atmospheric, and "post-rockish". As for the lyrical concept, the title of the release says it all (yes, this time it's more philosophical than political).

Like in the case of my previous post, I've uploaded only Skagos' side of the split. In my opinion, it isn't much different from "Ast": atmospheric black metal with long acoustic parts and harsh vocals. Skagos' sound goes far beyond the boundaries of traditional black metal, but it's typical for the majority of Cascadian BM bands.

WBSS are a duo from Cedar Rapids (Iowa), playing very atmospheric and melodic kind of black metal with lots of clean vocals. According to Metal Archives, their primary lyrical theme is: "Respect and Honor to Mother Nature", so I guess it's safe to post their tracks under the "green anarchist black metal" label.
P.S. Members of WBSS use the monikers "Lord Sardonyx" & "Syntax Function A", and their previous BM project had a brilliant name: "Satan's Allmighty Penis".

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

In The Sea Of Trees is an one-man project from Los Angeles, playing acoustic folk music heavily inspired by (post) folk/black metal and traditional folk (bluegrass, gypsy, celtic, etc.) The name of the project refers to the Aokigahara forest of Mt.Fuji, which has a historic association with demons in Japanese mythology, and is a popular place for suicides. While the music is completely instrumental, its creator holds the same anarcho-environmentalist views which are common in Cascadian BM scene, and he's very open about it.

"Hail Wind and Hewn Oak"(including the earlier 2-track demo, "Of Stone and the Stars in the Sky") is the second full-length release by Falls of Rauros, and the quality of recording was significantly improved in comparison to their earlier releases. Now they work with Austin "Lundr" of Panopticon, who would be a session musician on their future albums. P.S. A new LP by Panopticon coming very soon!

Falls Of Rauros is a band from Maine (US), whose members don't disclose much about their identities. However, it's known that initially FoR was a duo, and now it has 4 members. Accoriding to Encyclopedia Metallium: "The band describes their music as "North Appalachian Heathen Black Folk Metal," exhibited by their firm beliefs in returning the world to a pre-Christian time, as well as their appreciation for nature", and their lyrical themes are: "Nature, Misanthropy, Anarchism". And according to their interview, the lyrics are quite focused on personal subjects. But taking in account their answer to the question about Christianity, I think they have very simular ideology to other nature-inspired and green anarchist black metal bands from North America.

As for the music, they call their style "blackened neofolk". Yes, it's not pure black metal, but it doesn't make their music bad, of course. The only weak point of this release is the quality of production, which definitely could be better. BTW, this album is officially available for free, as well as both of their demos.

This live album is the most recent release by Aztra. It consists mostly of acoustic versions of their older songs, but there also are a few new tracks, and a cover version of "Manisfesto" by Victor Jara. Track #5 has female vocals, and its name is a reference to the infamous events of 10 October 1977 on the sugar factory "AZTRA" (hence the name of the band), when the striking workers were massacred by the government forces.

The music is also strongly influenced by indigenous American folklore and mythology. Interesting enough, many of South American leftist rebel groups pay much homage to Native American beliefs too. For example, there was a guerilla movement in Peru called Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA), whose name is a reference to a legendary indigenous Peruvian freedom fighter Túpac Amaru II. Revolutionary groups like Partido Comunista de Ecuador - Sol Rojo ("Communist Party of Ecuador – Red Sun") and Sendero Luminoso ("Shining Path") are also known for assuming their ideological leader, Abimael Guzman, to be an incarnation of Red Sun god ("Puka Inti" in Quechua). It's worth noting that PCE-SR and Sendero Luminoso are far more authoritarian than MRTA, and SL have got a very bad name in Peru because of their brutality. There was also a rebel group in Ecuador called "Alfaro Vive, Carajo!", whose name can be translated as "Alfaro Lives, Dammit!", and refers to Eloy Alfaro, a progressive Ecuadorian president murdered by religious fanatics in early 1912. In the popular imagination of Ecuadorians, the name Alfaro is synonymous with rebellion (though Alfaro himself wasn't a socialist, just a radical liberal and a strong opponent of the church). The first action of AVC, when they broke into a museum and stole swords which had been used by Eloy Alfaro, was rather a symbolic magical action than a political one.

A newly released 5-track demo by D.H., an anarchist musician from Chicago. Not so long ago he wrote an article about RABM for Chicago Reader in cooperation with me, but unfortunately it wasn't published. However, he promised to let me know if it would be published in another magazine.

As for the album, it's experimental stuff consisting mostly of bass solos with heavily distorted vocals over it. Don't know if black metal fans would like it, but I'd certainly recommend it for sludge or drone fans. And don't you think that Luciferianism is more compatible with anarchist ideology than any of other sets of beliefs under the umbrella term "Satanism"?..

P.S. The album is available for download from Bandcamp either for free (just type "0" in "Name your price" field), or for a donation (just name your value).

Дно/Dno is an one-man project started no so long ago by Max, one of the members of our vkontakte.ru RABM community. As it was said in release notes: "It's my first attempt in creating such kind of music. The quality of recording is lame, instruments are cheap, but I put a lot of soul and efforts in this work, so I hope someone would like it. Thanks to all supporters and like-minded persons!"

There isn't much black metal on this release, it's mostly neofolk and nature-inspired ambient with elements of atmospheric BM. It's nature-inspired music, and it has a heavy influence from Eastern Asian (particularly Tibetan) philosophy. BTW, the black metal parts remind me of Zuriaake and other Chinese atmospheric BM bands.

Monday, November 29, 2010

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I can't remember where I found this demo (most probably in our vkontakte.ru RABM group). There's almost no infourmation about the band, but they're definitely from ex-USSR (most likely from Russia), and very simular to Mania and Peregrine in terms of ideology. Leaving aside the intro and the Motorhead cover (it sounds just as expected - like old school 80's blackened heavy/thrash metal), their only original song sounds really good, even though it's just a first demo. There are even some elements of symphonic black metal, which is a rare thing in the RABM scene.

This 3-song promo release was posted in our "Blackened Crust" last.fm group, and I really liked it, though it's relatively far from blackened crust - it's more like hardcore/crust in the vein of Tragedy and From Ashes Rise. It also reminds me of some Eastern European female-fronted hardcore bands like Devil Shoot Devil - maybe because Petnaesti Čeh use more or less clean female vocals too.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Vessel I is a new post-black metal project from Southern California. I had a little conversation with their guitarist/vocalist in our last.fm group few months ago, but in that time their records had sub-demo quality, so I decided to wait for a proper release. Now, their sound is way better, incorporating elements of neocrust and post-rock, and obviously influenced by Cascadian black metal scene. The name of the demo is pure post-rock satire (compare it F#A#∞ by GY!BE, who also are anarcho-friendly), and Vessel I have ironically referred to themselves as "hipster black metal" band. Obviously, they have a sense of self-humour, but I'm not sure if I understand their doctrine of "anarcho-nihilism" correctly. To me, their ideology looks very simular to the ideas of Stirner and Nietzsche.

Political Terror (previously known as Meus Luctus), a duo from Miami (Florida), consisting of Anthony Garcia (vocals/drums) and Peter Hernandez (guitar), plays pro-environmentalist, non-militant straight edge, anarcho black metal. It's their first release, and their sound is very raw, but I guess many fans of US black metal would enjoy it anyway. And of course, it's good to see another BM band being open about their anti-authoritarian beliefs.

Monday, November 22, 2010

One more release from my wishlist. This is a cassette rip, and there are only two files - "side A" and "side B", though the tracklist has 5 tracks. Enough for today, next time I'll post some American stuff (Political Terror, Panopticon, etc.)

Thanks to Evrom for posting this release! Now I can delete it from my wishlist. Of course it's a raw home-made demo with not so good quality of sound, but I still like it. Just keep in mind it's blackened punk rather than black metal.

A new EP by this well-known Kharkiv-based chaotic blackened crust project (and of course, it's available for free by the band's permission). Fun fact: it was posted even on 88music (but quickly deleted) - they thought it's right wing because of the name of last track (which is named "Glory to Rus'" strictly for satirical purpose).

I already have introduced Corubo to you, and here's their split album w/ the Colombian band named Tremor. Looks like Tremor shares a simular ideology with Corubo, but they play very different type of BM.

DOWNLOAD"INDIGENOUS BLACK METAL, an idea that began between 1999 and 2000, it's not a Viking metal, not Nordic, not Satanic, not Nazi (anti), not NS (anti), but something with own origin and culture, something new and personal. The indigenous culture is almost extinct, many people see the indigenous peoples as something negative, or see with proud the real people from the country, the same country as almost exterminated them. But many people resist, as Corubo. The fact of living in an self environment, without laws, freedom, alone, in cooperation and respect, while in action against anything that destroys this ideal, brings us identification. We don't have nothing against cultures of other regions, but many, as the European culture that is highly exploited, its people are giving up their freedom by name or honor of a king, of a flag, of a law, of a race (even though exist only one: the human). IN ACTION FOR FREEDOM, AGAINST POLITICS, NATIONALISM AND FRONTIERS!"

This is a self-description of Corubo, a band from Brazil who sings in Guarani (if I correctly identified the language). Yes, not only Aztra are playing left-leaning indigenous metal! Corubo's sound is really original and innovative, I haven't heard anything like that before. By the way... it's only me, or the middle part of 2nd track on this album is really simular to "The Sacred War"?

I found this band due to Critical Rupture blog. It was made by an Australian who's interested in all kinds of environmentalist, eco-anarchist and nature-inspired black metal. You can find a lot more of indigenous metal on his blog, and I'd agree with him that the message of Corubo is obviously anti-colonial, ecological, and anarchistic.

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This is the most recent release by Neverchrist, also sent to me by Thiago "Baphomet". Despite its year of production, it sounds very like the 1st-wave black/thrash metal of 80s (Bulldozer, Sarcofago, early Bathory...). Same for lyrical content: "In this infernal possession all is with the evil; sex, pleasure and death – our only way", etc. - sounds like typical early BM band's lyrics.

In the words of Thiago:

"We're are not socialist, communist, neither we are in some movement. But, at the same time, we don't support the NS, because we see this with some ridiculous, most in Latin-America! The name of your Demo was a direct attack to some people that had problems with us at these times, and to see if some said "nazi" was do something that he had said, 'cause as you know, this people only says, but never do nothing! A lot of cowards! So... I don't have no one problem to Neverchrist to be recognized with a band of RABM, but only the song Antinazi Black Metal do references to this, the other lyrics speak about anti-christianity, goetia, death, heresies, etc.. Neverchrist already release other stuffs next, that be: "Corrosive Rivers of Blood" (Tape February 2010 - under Viceral Vomit Records - Costa Rica), and with lyrics speaking about goetia and legends of ancient people natives from Brazil and pre-colombian people, like Aztecs, Mochicas, etc.. and next I release in internet the stuff "Infernal Possession", with a sound more Old School Black Metal, including a song created in join with Hector Corpus (Black Angel - Peru), and I send the link to you download it here, and divulge in your blog, if possible, thanks!"

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This rare rehearsal tape was sent to me by Thiago "Baphomet", the leader of Neverchrist. Of course the quality of production is terrible, so this record is probably only of a historical interest, but feel free to download it anyway.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

These two bands aren't overtly political, and this split is already posted in a lot of blogs, but I'll post it here as well. This self released split cassette contains two long untitled tracks, one by each band. It's really good stuff, especially the Ash Borer's side - way better than the first demo! Members of Fell Voices and Ash Borer also have a collaboration project called Sleepwalker.

Enough posts for today, 'cause I'm already extremely tired, so I'll continue to post music this weekend (maybe). Expect some stuff from Brazil, including Neverchrist's rare demos, and the new Panopticon.

A Cloud Forest, an anarchist black metal act from Arizona, finally released their first full-length album on Oct.31! Let me quote Eric from ACF:

"The album is officially released on Oct 31 but there are already a bunch of blogs that have already posted it up this morning so whenever you want to post it is cool. If people are interested in purchasing the album or whatever it will be available off the website, and is currently available for download off of http://acloudforest.bandcamp.com/ for $3. There will also be physical CD copies for sale too but more than anything I just want it to get out there and have people be able to hear/experience it"

The archive contains all the music, inserts, lyrics and everything. Im my opinion, the quality of production was improved greatly since the release of the first demo... the only thing I really don't like about this release are the vocals. No offence, but it's really a huge letdown, so I'd advice Eric to find a better vocalist.

As for the music, it's quite good, with a certain influence of Cascadian BM and gothic metal. Especially the track "Cain" is much closer to gothic metal than to BM (no wonder, because this song was originally performed by Tiamat, and Tiamat is gothic metal... at least in 2000s. They're also pretty much pro-environment and leftist-friendly, judging from the interviews - though it isn't surprising for a band from Sweden).

Friday, October 29, 2010

About a week ago, I was asked to post some more tracks by Moscow Death Brigade. Well, it's certainly not the kind of music I usually post here, and I'm absolutely not sure if my readers wouldn't be turned off by hip-hop and rap, but I'll post it anyway. At least they have very good political message, and very heavy and aggressive sound.

Considering it wouldn't be easy for you to find any other political hip-hop acts from the former USSR (if you're interested in that kind of music), I decided to make a compilation of the best political rap stuff I've ever came across. It took a lot of time and efforts, but finally I made this sampler of 20 best socially conscious hip-hop projects from Russia (and some from Ukraine and Belarus):

DOWNLOAD(upd.: unfortunately I've lost the track list for this compilation, so I couldn't reupload it even if I really wanted to. Sorry)

Almost all of this stuff can be found on gnwp.ru in the "hip-hop & rap" section. It sould be noted that these rappers are very different in terms of ideology: there are anarcho-communists (L.C.L.), traditional marxists (Ebalance) and even anarcho-primitivists (Apocalypse Culture) and self-proclaimed "satanic hip-hop" (Entexnau)... or satirical projects (missis Garrison), and just people without any particular ideology, but still holding progressive views towards society (MDB, 2K, NW). The sound is very different from track to track as well; there's a lot of Necro-inspired hardcore hip-hop (MDB, FoV) and rapcore (Blitzkrik), but also some less aggressive stuff, and even female-fronted trip-hop (Sheridan). Hope you'll enjoy at least some of these projects.

Hip-hop is actually very good as a political genre, since it's very popular now, very lyrics-oriented, and relatively easy to make. You don't need to form a full band of 4-5 members to become a rapper, and you can achieve a fairly good quality of production even if you make your recordings at home. Of course, there's a lot of really amateur and poorly produced stuff... but it's D.I.Y., you know; and it's only the beginning. Only a few years ago there wasn't any openly leftist hip-hop in Russia at all, except for Blitzkrik and xEdge Jihadx (and they both were not very good). So it's good to see more and more people listening to not some gangsta shit about lots of money, whores, drugs and big cars, but to really conscious/revolutionary hip-hop.
And here are some photos:

Moscow Death Brigade

missis Garrison

Dieta

Sheridan

This archive includes all the tracks by Moscow Death Brigade I could find. They don't release much stuff, because they prefer quality over quantity. I recommend to start listening this compilation precisely from their tracks - because they're the best. MDB are one of the few bands to speak openly about a lot of social problems, consumerism, police brutality, street violence and the rise of chauvinistic tendencies in the post-Soviet countries. In the late 20 years Russia became a not very nice place to live (to say the least), and they're not afraid to tell the truth about it in their lyrics, along with hope for a positive social change.

"Stay true for youself and your deed,In the world full of chaos, go ahead bravely,There's no option except to stand up 'til the end,Moscow Death Brigade fuels the flame in hearts"

(from the track "'Till the End", sorry for such a rough translation)

And I also need to say that there's a specific problem in the ex-USSR, called "nazi rap". No, I'm not kidding. There really are people who are trying to make "rap only for whites" and simular shit, and unfortunately it's becoming more and more popular. First I thought it was just a joke, but now there are thousands of NS hip-hop fans... If it's a joke, then it's a very bad joke. At least anti-racist hip-hop is still prevalent here, and here's a video of a live performance of MDB on an anti-nazi rally in Moscow (one year ago):

Well, it isn't BM too, but it's really good stuff (especially for a demo release). Revolted Masses are a political death/thrash metal act from Athens (Greece), and their demo "Seeds of Revolt" is free to distribute (archive includes not only music, but also lyrics and artwork).

Intially, this demo was posted on our Russian-language blog, but I decided to post it here too. By the way, now I have a lot of work on that blog, in cooperation with a few other activists. Fortunately almost all the work is done now, and I'll present you the blog in the next few days.myspace

Okay, today I'm not in the mood for posting black metal (frankly speaking, I'm not in the mood for posting anything, but I ought to keep the blog alive), so I'll post a very fine crust/stenchcore demo. "This is D-Beat crust at its finest: The familiar crust landscapes of blackened skies, radiation clouds, innocent victims of war and darkening future are here created by the crust assault of four tracks along with the lyrical Armageddon..." (c). Or maybe I'd rather call it just "Punk Metal"? Anyway, good to see more and more band willing to revive the style of Amebix and Hellbastard. Even Darkthrone have such kind of sound nowadays... Up the heavy metal-fueled crust punx!

Thursday, October 7, 2010

What's new with my blog? First of all, I re-uploaded Katyusha's demo tracks in better quality. Second, thanks to 7inchcrust for uploading two first releases by Black Kronstadt in good quality and with all cover scans. I haven't yet contacted Media Tree Recs. for Aesahaettr demo, but I'll do it in the near future.

Now I have plans to work on a Russian-language blog for Red & Anarchist Metalheads. This idea is inspired by simular blogs from Colombia and Ecuador, and I already found some people who are willing to be the co-authors of the blog. So I probably would be much less active here... because it's time to build regional movements! As for this blog, maybe I'll write more posts about political and social issues, because my recent posts about politics gathered considerable attention. If all goes well, there's going to be an article about the current situation in Hungary (and maybe Poland). The recent events in Equador are of interest too, but you'd have to wait until I finally respond to all of my mail... answering such an amount of correspondence in English takes so much time :(

And finally: after my posts about oriental and caribbean metal I started wondering if there's any metal in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding the South African Republic. Yes, I already wrote about Ngos'a Bedimo from Cameroon, and there's a relatively well-known death metal band from Botswana called Crackdust (if not to take in account another death metal band - Infertile Surrogacy - who are said to be from Congo, but it's almost certainly a hoax)... but overall it seemed to be like the metal or punk scene is completely absent in Africa. It's disappointing but unsurprising, taking in account the extreme poverty and bad political condition in that region. Most of people there probably just don't have an opportunity to play any rock music, and these kinds of music are most likely out of the media there... you know what I mean.

So it was a big surprise for me to find a significant hard rock scene in Madagascar! Unfortunately their site has a lot of bugs, and it's all in French, but it was a very interesting find anyway. Yes, I know Madagascar has not many cultural relations to the mainland Africa - the Malagasy people are basically Indonesians who arrived there about 1500 years ago and later mixed with Bantu people. But anyway it's in the South African region.

The most well-known metal band in Madagascar is probably Sasamaso, a female-fronted thrash metal band formed in Antananarivo 8 years ago. They even have made one music video, which I can't embed here UPD: I've re-uploaded it to Youtube (but the quality is far from high, unfortunately):

For me their music is good, but I don't like the crosses they're wearing... it'd better be inverted ;)

There are also a couple of black metal acts in southern Africa - namely Rhanawa, a blackened thrash metal project from Malawi, and Darkest Place, a 7-piece(!) gothic/black metal band from Mozambique. I'm not sure if Rhanawa isn't a joke project, because the only image of him was actually stolen from Orisha Shakpana's myspace, and Malawi is a very unlikely place to find any metal fans there... but damn, the music is good! You can get Rhanawa's album "Heart of Mkango" here, for example.

As for Darkest Place, they're playing blackened gothic metal with male and female vocals. Looks like they have no proper releases, only some demo tracks. You can search on youtube for their stuff, if you wish.

P.S. A question to my Brazilian and Portuguese readers - can you tell me, what is this song about? It was recorded by a band named Neblina from Angola, the lyrics are in Portuguese and probably have some political references. But I'm not sure of what kind they are...

Conrad is the only metal project from Barbados, a relatively small island in the Caribbean. The band was started on August 5th 2009 in the Eastern Grasslands of St. Philip by then 17-year old Kadeem Ward (Veldt Soldaat/Emdeka). Members of such black metal bands as Fornost (Nicaragua) and Orisha Shakpana (Jamaica) have also contibuted to Conrad's releases.

As for the name - Conrad is said to be an irritable ghost from the Bajan mythology who possessed women and live in their stomaches. According to the project's mastermind, "With the goal to preserve and teach historical tales and ancestral myths, Conrad fuses the elements of Afro-Caribbean rhythms & sounds with epic orchestral ambience and highly distorted riffs influenced by the groundbreaking bands of the early Norwegian Black Metal scene. The project’s themes are highly focused on Barbadian folklore which either tells dark or mesmerizing tales about the island’s early inhabitants, nature, paranormal events and various mythical creatures. Other lyrical themes reflect on early African Tribes, Orishas and pirates of the Caribbean".

While the music of Conrad is definitely influenced by black metal, overall it's more of ambient folk/pagan metal with LOTS of synths. Or maybe even "pirate metal"?.. yaarrr!!! Anyway, it's much better than I expected, very melodic and atmospheric (but not very raw or brutal). The archive includes all the artwork and lyrics (some of which are even in Yoruba language!), along with mp3 files.

Today, Kadeem Ward is working on Conrad's next demo, "Conrad Within". Looks like the society of Barbados is very hostile to any forms of metal, and it's hard to him to find any like-minded people there, but he have already found a drummer. This future release will be far more darker and eerie in terms of the musical, lyrical and visual aspects entailed. Of course I'd upload it too, if he send it to me. It's cool to have readers even in Barbados!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

A new video made by Red & Anarchist Metalheads of Colombia. Yes, there's even such movement, and it's really massive! They even organized a left-wing metal festival "Metal, Conciencia, Cultura & Resistencia" a few days ago. As far as I know, Colombia is the only country to have such strong and well-organized leftist movement consisting of metalheads. Wish we had something like this here in Eastern Europe...

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And finally, some more radical stuff I've kept for you. Tresckow is a solo "back valley black metal" project with anarchist/nihilist roots, emerged from German radical leftist underground in 2007 as a reaction to obvious nationalist currents in the BM scene. This is the first German anarchist black metal (not blackened crust or hardcore) band I've came across for so long. Musically it's atmospheric, mostly instrumental black metal with some prog elements. There never were any proper releases by Tresckow, but there are some demo recordings which I present to you. For me, it's good depressive BM, but a little monotonous and "wall of sound"-like. The project is named after Henning von Tresckow, who was a general in the German Wehrmacht who organized the resistance against Adolf Hitler. Now he's regarded an anti-nazi hero in Germany.

If you're interested in the current state of the project: "realising there's enough ideas and motivation to form a band, i teamed up with some friends from other crustcore/powerviolence bands (namely gunmob, slump, post war depression and hellborn messiah), picking up where i left tresckow. there's no proper recordings as of yet, imagine the older tresckow stuff minus the prog cheesiness, improved riffing, harsh female vocals added and way more aggressive". Well, let's hope for more good releases from them in the future.

myspace
P.S. According to some info I've got, some more German BM bands are left wing: namely Nocte Obducta, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, Samsas Traum, Coldworld and Eisregen. I've no idea if it's really so, but at least Der Weg Einer Freiheit sounds really good, and definitely simular to some Cascadian BM bands.

This split album w/ Thou is the latest release by Leech, and nothing is known about the current state of the band. I'm not a big fan of bands like thou, so I wouldn't review their side of the split, but everyone who likes nature-inspired atmospheric black metal should check out the Leech's side. As it was said on Metal-Archives: "Something like WITTR, but with a much darker feel"...

At Once, Our Home Was Overcome By a Roar Which Tore Through Our Hearts, Silencing the Wind and the Quiet Songs of the Birds; We Realised What We Had Lost, and Began to Call to Her

Chained to the Ghost of a Lie, We Blindly Stumble Toward Our Death, Stopping Occasionally to Kick (But Never Question) the Rotted Carcass At Our Feet Which Slows Our Pace

bonus tracks:

True History of Mankind (live)

A Long Forgotten Path (live)

I Saw a Hole in the Man, Deep Like a Hunger He Will Never Fill...

DOWNLOADLimited to 100 hand-numbered copies w/ poster. The packaging is a 12-page zine detailing the band's anarcho-primitivist sentiments, with the booklet essentially serving as a primer. 50 copies were released on white cassette and also contained the bonus tracks. Limited tour edition reissued with hand-sewn CD cover, sticker, polaroid, poster, and moss housed in a bag block-printed in runes. Limited to 100.
This release by Leech can be characterised by much more "cascadian" sound than their previous words. It's less raw and agressive, and much more atmospheric. Speaking of bonus tracks, they aren't too good when compared with the rest of album, but I've included them in the archive too.
"Leviathan" is a book by Thomas Hobbes published in 1651, concerning the structure of society and origins of state. "Leviathan" itself is a metaphor for a tyrannical government, so the name of this release also reflects the band's anarchist views.

DOWNLOAD (see comments)
This is a split 7'' between Leech and California-based melodic black/death metal. Can't say much about this release, it's not much different from "10 Black Hymns" in terms of sound.

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Leech are a relatively well-known heathen primitivist black metal band from Salem, Oregon, whose members also participate in Mania, Flesh Amulet, Velnias and several other projects. "Ten Black Hymns" is their first release, featuring 10 untitled tracks with clear blackened crust overtones on some of them. Not as atmospheric as the majority of black metal releases from that region, but still good.

Dead And Forgotten are an anarcho-pagan, pro-environmentalist depressive black metal band from Piemonte, Italy. Their first and only full-length release "Strix sive de ludificatione daemonum" incliudes 6 songs from their earlier EP "Ars Moriendi", and 3 unreleased tracks. The whole album looks more like a compilation of tracks, than a solid work - mostly due to differencies in quality of sound between tracks. But overall it's definitely not bad. It's available for free on their myspace, along with all artwork.

Monday, September 20, 2010

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Last Legion Alive are a stenchcore band from Belgium, who describe their style as "anarchist metal punk". They also are a female fronted band... but it's hard to guess from vocals, which are really brutal! All fans of Axegrinder, Hellbastard, Deviated Instinct, etc. are advised to check out these 4 pieces of anarcho-metal - it's actually good for a demo! A split 12'' with Hellstorm (Greece) is in works.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

This is much less heavy and extreme than most of the stuff I have on my blog. But it's really obscure... and yes, it's left wing.

Proletarier are a very obscure melodic metal/rock band from Japan who released their first and only LP in 1999 and several singles in early 2000s. Almost nothing is known about them, except for the info from their official homepage - but unfortunately it's all in Japanese, and not updated since 2003. They also have some kind of a political blog, so I asked a friend, who knows a little Japanese, to translate it. But we could understand not very much: only that they're leftist and pro-environment. Their leader's name is 覚幸, which could be "Akira Yuki" or "Satoshi Kou"... not sure which transliteration is right. As for the song names, "初夜" is for "First Night", "最良の日" - "Better Day(s)", "幼年期の終わり" - "Childhood's End" (probably a reference to A.Clarke's novel), "赤軍" - "Red Army"... and we couldn't get any better translation for "1945～ｵｯﾍﾟﾝﾊｲﾏｰの夏～" than "1945 - Oppenheimer's Summer". Except for this 2001 single, no releases by Proletarier are available anywhere. I'm very interested in getting their first self-titled LP: it seems to be more political, and after 2000 they turned to more glam rock/metal...

By the way, I'm curious about the current state of Eastern Asian leftist movements. There was a lot of anarchists in China and Japan, especially in 1920s, and these guys were pretty badass... but what about today? Anyway, I recommend you to watch the South Korean movie "Anakiseuteu / The Anarchists", and the Japanese one "United Red Army". I'm also going to watch "Lady Snowblood II: The Lovesong Of Vengeance", which is Japanese too, but I'm not sure if it's pro-anarchist or not.

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Addaura are a six-piece atmospheric black metal band from Seattle, led by a member of crust/stenchcore band Sanctum. Even though they sound not quite like the majority of other BM bands from Cascadia (just my impression), it's still nature-inspired black metal creating truly melancholic atmosphere. It's definitely one of the best BM released from that area in 2010, and it certainly deserves to be posted on my blog (even though it isn't too political).

I found this album through Chief Commie music blog, where it was posted under "left wing music" label. According to that blog:

"Fell Voices is an atmospheric, "cascadian" black metal band that has only released one demo and this self-titled album. When I first heard the opening track I wasn't overly impressed, but then the second (and final) track came along and blew me away. Not that the first song is bad, it just took me a few listens to get it, while song 2 was love at first listen. The band is probably some flavor of anarchist, and they're from Santa Cruz (where I went to school), so that's something!"

Well, I don't know if it can be called "Cascadian Black Metal", since the Cascade mountain range certainly doesn't extend too far south. Anyway, they're playing atmospheric black metal with strong doom/drone influence, and they're friends of bands like Mania, Ash Borer and Lake of Blood - so they most likely support the ideology of Cascadian BM scene.

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This is a new release from Curitiba-based anarchist noisecore/BM project Vaba Marat. VM's side of the split consists of two short tracks sounding more like grindcore/noisecore than black metal. As for Hehexun, I can describe their style as primitive black metal / DBSM with a bit of drone. Their sound is very minimalistic, seems like they even don't use any drums. Overall it's really odd stuff, only for fans of really underground noisy black/grind. If you're new to Vaba Marat, it probably would be better for you to start from the first demo.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

As you already know, our comrade RaunijaR from Belarus wrote an article about RABM, which was published in the 3rd issue of the Russian-language zine "PunkWay". Now I translated it to English. Hope it will be useful for you (even though my translation is probably poor, and the article is intended mainly for the audience from ex-USSR):

"Many of us just don't think about the importance of subcultures based on ideas of social change. But these subcultures give youth an opportunity to see the another side of the society, and the alternative world view; to communicate with people who see the world from the alternative point of view, and to join their subculture, accepting its ideas.

There's no openly political or socially conscious subcultures, except for skinheads, punks and HxC kids (and maybe also hippies). Well, there are some hip-hop and metal bands who're singing about major problems of society, but they all are just exceptions, and you can find some such stuff in any subculture. But I'd like to give some more attention to metal. Metalheads are one of the most massive subcultures, and it can be seen by naked eye; but nowadays' metalheads mostly lack any strong convictions or social stance. "Beer, metal and girls"? It isn't a social stance, it's for irresponsible hedonists who are wasting their lives without taking any responcibility for themselves, their vicinity and the whole planet. Speaking of the majority of metalheads from ex-USSR countries, they're mostly just spineless conformists. If these metalheads got beaten by an active group of neonazis just one or two times, then they'll accept the "brown" ideology without any significant resistance. Moreover, some subgenres of metal support not only anti-Christianity and paganism, but also anti-semitism, xenophobia and racism. I speak primarily of NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal). This subgenre quickly became widely popular, because the nazis have lost some of their positions in the skinhead subculture - due to the growth of SHARP and RASH movements, and spreading awareness of the multiracial roots of that subculture. But the influence on subcultures is important for nazis to spread their ideas among the youth, and the pagan metal scene was successfully assimilated by racists due to its traditionalist background. So only two choices were left to the metal fans: they're either narrow-minded persons interested only in alcohol and music, or fascist "neopagans". But such state of affairs could not last forever...

As early as in 1980s, Amebix have mixed crust punk with thrash metal (and some elements of proto-black metal), which was relatively popular in these times. Later in the early 2000s, a band called Iskra was formed in Canada, and they coined the term "blackened crust" (a mixture of black metal and crust punk). They played music with social-themed lyrics, heavy sound and extreme vocals. Their album "Bureval", released in 2009, was dedicated to the revolutionary events in the XX century Russia. Over time, a lot of bands playing music very close to black metal, but with some overtones of post-rock, anarcho-punk, dark ambient, etc., started to emerge in the region of Cascadia (a region near the west of USA-Canada border known for its unique nature, where Iskra came from). Their lyrical themes often included the social and political problems, vegetarianism, anarchism, anti-racism, open-minded atheism, environmentalism, and mythology.

A new subgenre was named RABM - Red & Anarchist Black Metal (compare with RASH). Generally speaking, there always were some leftist people in the BM scene; for example, Euronymous of Mayhem was a member of a radical communist party. But their lyrics didn't openly say about their beliefs. And now it took only a couple of years to get a lot of people interested in the new subgenre, who also are supporters of these political beliefs. Thanks to comrade Black Kronstadt (he's from Russia, BTW), all these people became able to unite and actively communicate. If he reads these lines, I'd like to thank him for all his work. (Yes, I read it! Thank you too, RaunijaR! - BK) Now RABM bands exist all over the world (and in Russia too), and even though only a minority of them openly sing about anarchism, it's still a new step in development of an anarchist culture. Let's hope for a big future for the RABM scene.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

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I found this one-man project through our RABM@vkontakte.ru group. Eternal Dysphory plays an interesting mix of depressive black metal and crust/stenchcore, with no vocals. It's worth listening, even though it's home-made. There's no track list for this album, and the archive also contains some other demo tracks.

Mystifier were among the first (and the best) black metal bands from Brazil, and moreover - one of the first BM bands with actual black people. Coming from the poor nothern regions of Brazil, Mystifier weren't really a political band, but they condemned the "christian capitalist world" and as far as I know, they were very sad when all that NSBM shit became popular. Taking in account the whole left-leaning culture of Brazil, I think it's not a big mistake to post some of their albums in my blog. "Goetia" is their most well-known album, and it's really good. That's how the real first wave BM should sound like.

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About the blog

First of all: there's probably a lot of broken English on this blog. Hope it isn't that bad, at least I'm trying to do my best. Feel free to point me to any of my mistakes, if there are any. -B.K.

If you're playing in a band and want to see your music featured on our blog - just send a download link of your demo to us:

- oiseau [@] riseup [.] net - for basically anything RABM-related, but she is generally interested in atmospheric, depressive, and post-BM stuff, as well as the projects from Latin America (and Mexico in particular).

- band name, release name/year, country of origin, album cover image (or at least band photo or logo);

- track listing (properly numbered);

- preferably a full release (not samples or streaming) in mp3/m4a/ogg (128kbps or higher bitrate). You may use any free filesharing site (preferably Mediafire) to host your files; or you can use Bandcamp (but then make sure your release is available for free download). *** NO LARGE ATTACHMENTS PLEASE!!! ***;

- any other info about you and your release (links to any sites related to your band, release notes, etc.);

- reason why you want your music to be featured on our blog (note that it's not just another metal blog, and even if your band is apolitical, it still should be somehow in the spirit of RABM movement).

Most of the uploads here are band sanctioned. Anyway, if you for some reason don't want to see your music here, contact us via email (rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com), and we'll consider taking it down.

If you wish to become a contributor for this blog, send a message to rabmblog [@] gmail [.] com. The obvious requirements are: being supportive of the RABM movement, good proficiency in English, and willingness to review lots of albums on a regular basis.

FAQ

Q.: Which kinds of music are featured on this blog?

A.: - (primarily) RABM or Red & Anarchist Black Metal: all kinds of black metal-related music charged with radical leftist (anarchist, libertarian socialist, eco-anarchist, etc.) political views. Some of the bands featured here may be not openly political, but all of them are RABM-friendly;

- blackened crust/hardcore/punk (only if it's openly RABM-friendly, or if it's just very good music; we have no intention to collect here all the blackened punk in existence);

A.: Most bands nowadays have a bandcamp page, where you can but their stuff online (usually for an arbitrary price). It's the most convinient way to support the band. If your favourite band don't have a bandcamp or bigcartel page, try to find out in which distro you can find their albums/merch. Of course, go to concerts if you have such opportunity.

Q.: How can I offer my financial support to this blog, or the RABM movement in general?

A.: Unfortunately right we don't have an opportunity to accept donations, but we hope we'll be able to set it up soon.

Q.: What is the connection between black metal and hardcore/punk/crust?

A.: It's a well-established fact that the connection between black metal and punk scenes existed since the early days of BM (think Venom, early Bathory, early Mayhem and early Sodom on one side, and Amebix, Discharge and Axegrinder on another). Recently this mix of BM and hardcore punk got a new life in the form of blackened crust (thanks to Black Kronstadt / Iskra in first place). And don't forget about Cascadian black metal bands with their radical environmentalist ideology, often to the extent of radical eco-anarchism or "pro-nature/anti-humanity" ideas.

Q.: What's your main ideology?

A.: This blog is generally written from a position of anarchism without adjectives; however, the RABM scene is very diverse ideologically. Let us end on this, as this blog isn't quite a right place for purely political debates; if you want to learn or argue about anarchism/other ideologies, there's a lot of specialized FAQs/blogs/forums for you.

Q.: Isn't black metal supposed to be apolitical?

A.: Supposed by whom? I personally don't think so, but if you think that political awareness should have no place in "true" black metal, you can feel free to call the bands featured on here "blackened punk" or whatever you want. It should be noted, though, that a lot of these bands doesn't openly talk about politics in their lyrics, exactly because they think it wouldn't be suitable for black metal. - B.K.

Q.: Isn't RABM just an "answer" to NSBM?

A.: While RABM is definitely against NSBM and any other kind of far-right crap in metal scene, it's most emphatically a self-sufficient movement and not any kind of "answer to NSBM". Similarly, while RABM is 100% pro liberation from any kinds of religious tyranny, it isn't a movement against any particular religion (Christianity, Islam, or any other).

Q.: What's your opinion on Satanism?

A.: The so-called "Hollywood Satanism", which is often found in black metal, is, in our opinion, nothing more than inverted Christianity, so we aren't big on it. Many of us are simply atheists, pagans of all kinds, gnostics, etc. We also don't share the notion that only genuine theistic Satanists / Devil-worshippers can play "real" black metal (this would exclude such bands as Venom, Bathory, Immortal, Summoning, and many many others). Additionally, the very term "Satanism" is quite vague, and can't be narrowed down to LaVeyan Satanism (which is heavily disliked by many black metallers), or whatever else. LaVey had some good points, but in general his philosophy can be described just as "Ayn Rand with some occult tinge".

Q.: What about misanthropy and nihilism?

A.: To put it in short: we don't hate everyone and everything (and we don't think there's anyone﻿ who truly does). We just hate these traits of humanity which make true anarchist society most likely infeasible in the foreseeable future.

Q.: Collectivism or individualism?

A.: There actually is no "hard" contradiction between these two terms. Individualism is simply an outlook emphasizes the moral worth of the individual and its right not to be oppressed by the state or some social group. It doesn't contradict at all with standing up for your rights along with a group of like-minded individuals. It also worth noting that the early black metal scene didn't promote individualism that much (see "black metal circles").

Q.: Who coined the term "RABM"?

A.: Hard to say, but there's an apparent similarity to RASH ("Red & Anarchist Skinheads"). Here's the very first mention of "RABM" we could find (August 2005). The term was popularized by our last.fm group (and later - by this blog) since 2009.

Q.: Do you know the ideology of the band X? It isn't obvious if they're NSBM or not...

A.: Sorry, we don't know, do your own research. It's often hard to say anything certain about a band's views, if the members themselves aren't open about it. We also don't advice using various "lists of nazi bands" etc. as a reference, as most of them are full of bullshit. Similarly, forum posts or blog comments (especially anonymous ones) generally aren't a reliable source for anything. In one particular case, we had an anonymous comment claiming that the members of Timebomb are now playing in a fascist band called SPQR. Later it turned out that it were members of a completely other Italian band with a similar name (Timebombs). Hopefully that'd be a good example of how important fact-checking is.

Q.: I've seen some of the albums posted here in the same distro with some albums by right-leaning bands...

A.: Unfortunately it's often the case with distros and labels that distribute stuff regardless of its political affiliation. Even Austin Lunn of Panopticon complained about Pagan Flames (the label which released his "Collapse" and "Social Disservices" LPs) having NSBM in their distro, so things like these are just unavoidable.

Q.: Some bands on this blog have Burzum on their list on influences. Isn't Varg Vikernes a nazi?